Immortality is BS
by kepic
Summary: An immortal GURPS character ends up in Brockton Bay. He's clueless and has an almost useless power. On the positive side, GURPS characters do improve over time, and he is immortal.
1. Chapter 1

**Immortality is BS**

To make it clear: All rights to characters, setting, story and central concepts in this story remain the property of Wildbow, Worm's author, and the good people who created GURPS. This is just me playing in the sandbox. Worm can be found at parahumans dot wordpress dot com, and GURPS Fourth Edition can be bought from warehouse23 dot com.

* * *

 **First contact**

I looked down at the knife. It was embedded to the hilt in my stomach. It felt bizarre. I was quite aware that the blade was in me but it didn't hurt. It didn't even sting.

My body had already healed around the blade and was trying to push it out. I shrugged and pulled the knife out, watching in fascination as the wound closed almost immediately. Then I glanced back at the man dressed in red and green, now whimpering on his knees. Perhaps I had been a tad too forceful dislocating his elbow. And his shoulder. And knee.

Hey, he stabbed me.

The other one had run as soon as he saw that I didn't go down when stabbed.

The girl they had been robbing had backed up against the wall. She was dressed in a business casual dress and one of her shoes was missing. I spotted it near a trash bin, picked it up and offered it to her. "Here, this might make walking easier. Are you OK?"

She grabbed the shoe in her shaking hands and bent to put it on. "Never mind me, what about you? He stabbed you!"

"Well, yes, but I got better. See?" I said and lifted up my T-shirt. I even pushed my finger through the hole in the fabric. "Would you happen to have a cell? We should probably call the cops."

She hesitated for a moment and pulled out her cell from her purse. "Shouldn't you have a mask or something?"

"Hmm? Why?"

"Well, you're a cape, aren't you?"

"A cape?"

"You know, parahuman."

"Ah, you mean superhuman. Yeah, I'm super. Well, sort of. My powers aren't much use in superhuman conflicts, I'm afraid. All I can do is survive."

"So are you with New Wave or something? They're the only group without secret identities I know."

"I don't know this New Wave. Are they a new group?"

She was silent, so I glanced at her from where I was tying up the thug.

"Where do you think you are?" she asked me. Puzzling.

"New York, of course. I just came from Chinatown and took a shortcut."

Another moment of silence. "Listen, this isn't New York. You're in Brockton Bay."

"What? Where?" It actually wouldn't be the first time one of my so-called pals had teleported me somewhere without me noticing. But I had never heard of this Brockton Bay.

"Brockton Bay. About five hours' drive from New York," she said, puzzled.

"Never heard of it. A small place then? I wonder which asshat did this time."

"I don't think Brockton is that small a place that you wouldn't have heard about it. We're in the news way too often for that. Comes with being the city with the highest cape concentration in the United States."

This was getting weirder and weirder. I was beginning to suspect Raquel had shunted me into another Earth. A bit extreme, perhaps, but he had done worse things when drunk.

"So the supers of this world go running around dressed in capes and masks?"

"Not supers. Capes. Parahumans. Yes, they have secret identities. And what do you mean of this world?" The lady began to sound frustrated.

"Well, I'm beginning to think that one of my acquaintances has played a prank on me and shunted me into alternate Earth or another dimension or something else."

She stood there staring me for a while. Then she grabbed the cell from my hand and stuffed it back to her purse. "Yeah, let's not call the cops. Just leave the thug there and come with me." She turned and walked towards the parking lot visible outside the alley mouth.

She took me to her car, shoved me inside, went to the driver's side and sat down before taking a deep breath. "I'll take you to my cousin. She'll know what the fuck to do with you. I hope."

* * *

She drove us to a two-story house in the suburbs. On the way she introduced herself as Rachel Stafford. She told me about Brockton Bay as we drove through the city and about the news. I asked questions and she answered.

"Endbringers?"

"Yeah. Behemoth was the first, crawled out of the ground. Destroys cities and kills a lot of capes. Then came Leviathan out of the sea. He sunk Kyushu and Newfoundland. Last but definitely not least is Simurgh. She dropped from space. Telekinetic and apparently telepathic, messes with peoples heads on a massive scale. Turns them into walking time bombs. Scary as hell," she said.

"Damn. So your capes began to appear in the late eighties, right? After that golden man, Zion?"

"Yeah, Scion, es-cee, was the first," she said.

"Huh. We started gaining powers back in the forties. Some think that it was the Second World War and the crazy things both sides did to win. Secret experiments in supersoldiering, the occult, all that nuclear stuff. Whatever it was the first ones were seen in public in mid-forties and since then the supers have become more and more common. There's almost a hundred million of us on the planet these days. Most of us don't go traipsing around in spandex anymore."

"Heh. Wait till you see my cousin's costume. Here we are," she said turning to a driveway.

We got out of the car and walked to the front door. She rang the bell and soon a blonde with a heart-shaped face and full lips opened the door. There wasn't much family resemblance to the redhead next to me. Both were beautiful, though.

"Rachel! What a pleasant surprise! And you brought a date!" She turned inside and shouted: "Kids! Neil! It's Rachel, and she brought a man!"

I could see she was drawing way too much amusement about my presence.

"Sarah! He's not my… Whatever! I came for help, you ass!" Rachel pushed past Sarah, storming in. The antics told me that they were quite close. It reminded me of my father and uncle.

Sarah gestured me inside and I complied. Their house was homey. Just the right mix of chaos and order required to make a home. Neil had obviously just climbed up from the double sofa and was standing next to it. Next to him were two teens, a blonde girl and a sandy-haired younger boy. Both rushed over to hug Rachel as she got to the living room with us.

"This is my husband Neil, and those are our kids Crystal and Eric," Sarah introduced. I shook hands with Neil. Did I mention yet that the man was a giant? Easily seven feet tall and a body that would have needed eight-hour days at the gym if he wasn't so obviously a super… parahuman. I'm a bit over six feet tall myself and I felt small next to him.

I shook hands with the kids too. "Hi, I'm Eric. And you must be Crystal," I said as I shook the boy's hand. I turned to the girl and shook her hand too. "That makes you Eric. Nice to meet you, namesake of mine."

The teens looked a bit stunned for a while, then turned to look at each other. "No way. Rachel brought over a guy with a sense of humor? The end days are here!"

We all laughed. Eric (the boy) turned to look at me and asked: "Is your name really Eric?"

I nodded. "Yeah. Eric Sloane. A funny 'coincidence', don't you think?" I actually used air quotes for that.

Eric laughed at that and turned to Rachel. "Sorry, Rachel, but you're way too old for me."

I snickered a little. "Ahh. But yeah, I think Rachel here wanted you to meet me. She seemed to think you could help."

Rachel eyed the kids. "Sarah, I think the kids should go upstairs."

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, like they wouldn't eavesdrop after that. Especially if they're sup… capes too. Keeping things from normal teens is hard enough."

Sarah shrugged and seemed to agree. We all took seats (Neil took two) and Rachel opened the discussion. "Sarah, I don't remember the details, but Haywire's work was banned, right? And travel between worlds is sort of no-no?"

"Yes. The power to breach the wall between worlds is so rare that it's practically nonexistent. And the few that exist are either recruited or subject to enforced research. Not officially, of course, but since travel between worlds was declared illegal after the Madison incident we haven't seen or heard of any capes with the power. Not that there were many to begin with."

Neil glanced at me. "He's from an alternate, isn't he?"

"Yeah. Either alternate Earth or a completely different dimension, or even different multiverse. If it was Raquel any of those is possible. I myself can't travel between realities. I rarely travel at all. My only power is not dying," I clarified.

"What do you think we can do, Rachel? Why didn't you go to Carol?" Sarah asked.

"You know why. Our relationship isn't on the best of terms right now."

"Right. Carol's allergy to anything fun. What did you mean 'not dying'?" Sarah asked, turning to face me.

I was about to answer when Rachel did it for me. Sort of.

"I saw him get stabbed, the wound heal over the blade, him pulling the knife out, and the wound closing again. This took less than ten seconds."

"You saw?" Neil asked.

"Uhh… I was sort of almost mugged. Don't worry, Eric stopped them, and they were only ABB thugs anyway."

"You were in that Chinese place again, weren't you?"

"I can't help it! They have the best buffet in the city!"

"Rachel, it's deep in the ABB territory. We non-Asians never go there alone," Neil chastened her.

I decided to rescue Rachel. "Back to the subject of powers. My insane regeneration is only a part of it. I'm literally immortal. I don't even need to eat, drink, breathe or sleep. There's this joker who has tried all kinds of things to off me. Most of the time with my permission. The first time was an honest accident, but he got fascinated when I came back after taking a dip in concentrated sulfuric acid. I mean, wouldn't you be? There was literally nothing left of me that time. It took me less than twenty seconds to rematerialize next to the tank. I'd show you but it can get pretty gruesome and I don't want to ruin these lovely sofas. But that's my only power, at least for now. Well, I'm also immune to all psionics."

"At least for now? Do you mean that you might get more powers?" Crystal asked.

"Yeah, it's not that uncommon where I come from. People who actually use and flex their powers tend to gain more of them. From that, I'm guessing that's not true around here?"  
Sarah looked at Neil. "No, not generally. There are second triggers, but they are extremely rare, and happen under extraordinary duress, not after practicing your powers."

"Huh. But from what I understand the powers used in my world and yours are pretty similar. How we gain them and when they first appeared to seem to be the major differences."

"You mean you don't have to trigger?" Eric asked eyes wide.

"Trigger?" I asked.

"Yeah, that's how we gain powers. The crappiest day of your life, like something life-threatening or like insane mental duress," Eric explained. "Easier for us second- and third-gens, though."

"Nope, nothing like that. I mean, sure, some folks might gain powers like that, I suppose, but these days powers are mostly inherited. The kind of powers inherited rarely make sense. My father's power was flight and my mom was a technopath. And I'm an immortal regenerator. No sense whatsoever. Some gain powers through exposure to funny things like exotic radiation or eldritch horrors, others meet aliens or something. There's not just one way to gain powers. Most of the time it just sort of happens."

"Your world is weird, man," Eric said.

"Yes, yes it is. Yours is a pretty grim place, though. I'd go even so far as to say crappy. I mean you have Endbringers and huge villain versus heroes fights and all that crap. Sure, we have villains too but mostly supers play with each other. Getting normals involved is a rather big no. It makes heroes come after you and villains want nothing to do with the offender. Usually."

"Fascinating," Sarah said, looking rather disinterested. She was the only one. "But I suppose Rachel brought you here so that I could convince my sister Carol to figure out how to help you?"

I shrugged. "I suppose so. I can't read thoughts. Which is lucky, I hear that power is rather crappier than it sounds like."

"You have telep-"

"Eric, not now. I'll give Carol a call and see if she'd meet you tomorrow. Are you going to stay at Rachel's tonight?"

"I've got no plans. Rachel?"

Rachel seemed to think for a moment. "Sure, why not. I have a relatively comfy sofa bed available."

We said our goodbyes and left.

I didn't sleep on the sofa that night.


	2. Chapter 2

**Immortality is BS**

To make it clear: All rights to characters, setting, story and central concepts in this story remain the property of Wildbow, Worm's author, and the good people who created GURPS. This is just me playing in the sandbox. Worm can be found at parahumans dot wordpress dot com, and GURPS Fourth Edition can be bought from warehouse23 dot com.

* * *

 **Conflict**

I woke up well-rested and satisfied. I was acting as Rachel's body pillow. It was rather nice. I slipped off the bed and Rachel just turned and mumbled something incoherent. I shrugged, dressed, and went to make breakfast. I didn't need to eat but I could, and Rachel definitely did have to eat. Since I didn't need to eat for nutrition my culinary skills revolved around foods that tasted good. Mostly I prepared foods that were considered unhealthy. Most people thought that I was a good cook. They didn't have to eat my cooking all the time, after all.

The smell of my cooking eventually dragged Rachel out of the bed. I was making bacon, eggs and cheese hash browns offered with orange juice with pulp. She slumped down to a chair and I placed a platter in front of her. I sat down as well, with a plate in front of me as well.

Rachel took a few bites, then a few more.

"I thought you didn't eat," she said between mouthfuls.

"I don't need to. I can, and enjoy it."

"Mmhm. You're a great cook. How come?"

"Well, with both parents being supers they were out heroing at odd hours so I learned to cook. And after I got my own powers I didn't really need to eat healthy anymore so I learned to cook tasty. My friends seem to like it."

"I can believe that."

"So what's on our agenda today? Just waiting to hear from your other cousin? The one who hates fun?"

"She's not that bad, actually. She just doesn't approve of how I live my life. She's a workaholic lawyer in addition to being a superhero and her moral standards are unreasonable. We might have also argued about her family life. My mistake, I admit."

I looked at her expectantly.

"Let's not."

I shrugged. "That's OK. Family matters and outsiders rarely mix. So, the plan?"

She thought for a while and stole my plate. "We should look into getting you a phone and then you can go explore the city while we wait for my cousin to contact me. And I suppose I have to work."

"What do you do?"

"I'm a journalist. Well, freelance. I support myself by being extremely nosy."

I stared her for a moment. "I suppose you want an exclusive if I end up doing something stupid like heroing?"

"Why yes, that sounds lovely. Thank you for suggesting it." Her expression was insufferably smug.

* * *

A short shopping trip later I was equipped with a functioning phone and out exploring the city. Turned out I didn't need a new phone, just a new SIM. It was rather convenient, I had pretty much my whole life in that phone. I just need to set up a new backup service since I couldn't connect to the cloud services in my world. My gear and clothes rarely survived if I ended up having to rematerialize after the total destruction of my body.

The Internet of this world was pretty much the same as mine, except that there was a similar grimness there as in real life. I soon found PHO and its forum. It and the wiki contained a lot of information, most of it supposition. Trying to filter out the fact from all of it was giving me a headache after just a few hours.

I was sitting on a bench watching the crowds wandering the Boardwalk. Tourists were easy to differentiate from the locals. The locals were somewhat grimmer even when they were enjoying a day out.

Bored with the Boardwalk I decided to go look around the city. First I wandered through the downtown area. Then I went to the Docks to look at the Boat Graveyard. The whole concept was ridiculous to me. They had supers capable of cleaning it up but for over a decade nothing had happened. I couldn't find any suggestions or pleas for anything like that either. It was strange.

Later that night Rachel called.

"Hi there. Carol, that other cousin of mine, said that it'd be best to meet on Monday so we have tomorrow to spend before it."

"That's good. I'll come over, going to take about an hour. Have you eaten? I could pick something up."

"Do you know where Fugly Bob's is?"

"Yes, I walked past it. I'll pick something up from there. See you soon."

"Laters."

* * *

Saturday night and Sunday morning went quite nicely. Rachel was off to hunt for some scandal or other and I decided to continue my exploration. Come evening I still ended up looking at the Boat Graveyard. Somehow it seemed to symbolize the whole insanity that was this world. I had dug a little deeper into the situation and had found out that there was very little political will to do anything about it because Leviathan had made cargo ships almost obsolete.

I watched the darkness fall over the Graveyard and came to myself only after Rachel called and asked if I was coming home. I answered in affirmative and began wandering in the general direction of Rachel's apartment.

I was passing through Docks as I heard shouts of pain and horror. Shortly after that there was a muted explosion and an enormous roar. Like a true fool, I immediately turned that way and started running. It took less than a minute to reach the site of a fight.

There were several Azn Bad Boys members rolling on the ground, wiping away bugs from them and, in many cases, screaming in pain. Lung was standing near the men, on fire from head to toe. He was alternating on looking in my direction and up to the roof of a building nearby.

Lung seemed to come to a decision and dashed to me, grabbed hold and jumped to the roof of the building he had been glancing at. I suppose the claws digging into me and the heat should have hurt but at this point in my life they were more of an inconvenience than anything.

On the roof was a tall and slim girl dressed in some sort of bug suit. If she had something to do with the bugs down on the street it would explain a lot. Despite looking rather dark and edgy I had learned long ago that costumes didn't really come into determining hero/villain status. She was almost at the fire escape, staring at Lung and me. Then she seemed to brace herself and turned to face us in earnest.

"Run, girl! I'm OK, he can't hurt me!" I shouted. I doubted her close combat abilities, especially against someone like Lung.

As if to prove me wrong Lung took my arm in a crushing grip and literally pulled it off. I groaned. That actually hurt. Not much, but still. I don't know if it was being on fire, but it took almost two seconds for a new arm to grow in its place.

"See?! Now run!" I shouted.

If I could read her body language right she seemed to be quite shocked. Then she turned and started to descend the stairs. Seeing her go I turned to Lung.

"Let's see if the big bad lizard can hurt little old me, shall we?"

Lung was strong and big but his anatomy, for now, was still mostly human. I hadn't seen any indication of him knowing any martial arts so I managed to twist myself out of his grip. He lunged at me claw extended. I wasn't a small man and in this case, it worked for me. I grabbed his extended claw and performed a judo throw.

Lung's mass was such that the impact shook the roof. I was slightly worried about its integrity. Lung scrambled back up to his feet. He was visibly larger than when I had first seen him, better armored and his fire blazed hotter. His face was elongated, pushing his metal mask to the side.

"Kill 'oo," he managed to say.

I shrugged. "You're welcome to try, lizard."

His technique hadn't improved with his size. He was still surprisingly fast for his size but that was all. There was no grace in the way he moved. I tried to roll under his swipe but hadn't paid attention to the changed topography of the roof and stumbled, rolling on my back instead of back up. I saw Lung's foot coming down.

A little later I heard Lung roar in victory when my head grew back.

"Yeah, yeah. You flattened my head. Very well done. Now, are you going to kill me or what? I'm immortal, you idiot. I guess lizard brains come with the body." Yeah, I was riling him up on purpose.

Lung turned towards me, ogling me for a moment. "Urrrr?"

Then his head turned to the side so fast it must have given him whiplash. Too slow, though. A huge black shape crashed into him and then they both went down over the edge of the roof. They hit the street with an audible crash.

I turned around just as two more beasts landed on the roof. I really worried about its durability. Surely it wasn't built to take all these impacts. The beasts were almost van-sized, covered in bone spikes and bulging masses of muscle. I couldn't tell what they were except that they looked like monsters. Off these two slid people, two or three girls, and one guy. I guess that from size alone the one I was uncertain about was also a man. The guy dressed in biker leathers and helmet approached me, while the others hurried to the edge of the roof to watch Lung and the monster duke it out.

The butch girl standing closest to the edge whistled and gestured and the two other beasts also jumped down to join the fight. I could already guess the outcome. Despite being a super Lung was woefully outclassed against three monsters, each twice or thrice his size.

"You really saved us a lot of trouble," the biker said to me. He had a charismatic voice despite being muffled by the helmet. His leathers were all black and there was a stylized skull painted on his visor. A pretty good cape guise while keeping things sensible. I never understood spandex. "Are you OK?" he continued.

"Hmm? Oh, sure. Like I said to the big lizard down there, I'm immortal. And a regenerator. Sadly my clothes aren't as durable," I said. I was almost naked. The only continuous piece of clothing was what remained of my cargo pants. They were practically short shorts now.

"When we got word Lung was aiming to come after us tonight, we were pretty freaked. We were arguing strategy for the better part of the day. We eventually decided, fuck it, we'd meet him halfway. Wing it. Not my usual way of doing things, but yeah."

I thought for a moment. "Well, dad said that sometimes it's better to go meet the threat you know is coming rather than give it a chance to come after you. That way you might surprise the fucker."

I heard the fire escape rattle and the girl from earlier peeked over the edge of the roof.

"You can come here, you know. Lung's almost done," I shouted.

The biker looked back, surprised to see the girl. So they hadn't been waiting to tackle Lung for long, then. Good to know these guys weren't that much of assholes. "She took most of the fight out of Lung before I came to continue the beating," I said with a crazy smile on my face.

The girl came to us, glanced down to the street and came to stand next to me, facing the new guys. "Hero or villain?"  
I glanced at her. "Does it matter? They saved my… Well, OK, they ended the fight, so it's all good, right?"

I could see from her shoulders and the way she held her hands that she disagreed. I went on before she could answer. I extended my hand to the biker.

"Eric. I suppose I'm a foolish hero. She's probably one, too, and I'm not really interested in your affiliation at the moment."  
The biker shook my hand. "Grue. That's Bitch," he said pointing at the butch girl, "Tattletale, and the pretty boy is Regent."

"What the fuck did you do to Lung, girl? He's actually losing down there," Regent said. He was dressed as… Some sort of renaissance fair lordling? He had a coronet and a scepter as well. Supers, mad, all of them.

"Wasp and bee stings, fire ants and spider bites," said the girl in purple and black. Tattletale, Grue had called her. "All those venoms are screwing up his regeneration," she said, glancing at me.

"We were coming over here but Lung's flunky Lee intercepted us with a half dozen guys. He's a cape but not a leader, so he ran when things got tough," Grue continued his earlier explanation. "I guess it's because of you two we didn't have to fight both of them at once. Thank you for that."

The sounds of fighting stopped and Bitch whistled to her monsters. All three scrambled up to the roof. I took a look at the street and saw the mangled body of Lung down there, at least unconscious. Perhaps dead.

"So what's your deal? Have a name?" Regent asked, looking at the bug girl.

She seemed uncomfortable, shifting her weight. "I haven't picked a name yet," she mumbled.

"She controls bugs, you doofus. You heard what I said earlier, right?" Tattletale taunted her teammate. Regent just shrugged. Then she turned her head and her smile faded. "Heads up. We've gotta scram."

Bitch nodded in response and whistled. In moments the three creatures were standing next to her team, ready to carry them off. Grue turned back towards us. "Need a ride?"

"Nah, we're good," I said for both of us. I had recognized their monikers from PHO wiki.

"Listen, a cape is gonna show up in less than a minute. You two did us a solid by dealing with Lung, so take my advice. Someone from

Protectorate shows up, finds capes duking it out, and there's going to be at least awkward questions asked. Especially since one of you isn't even masked. You two should probably leave too." She smiled at us. It was your standard vulpine grin that unsettled people, I included. Raquel had one like it.

Then they were gone, clipping the fire escape on their way down. The sound it produced was a rather unsettling screech of metal on metal. I hoped it was still usable or we'd have to be creative in getting down to the street.

"Damn," the girl said.

"What?" I asked.

"So those were the kids Lung was going after. Not some daycare. I risked my life for villains," she sighed. So she had realized it as well. Good.

I led us down to the street and checked on Lung. Still alive, although his vitals were quite weak. As I finished with that I could hear a motorcycle arriving. Probably a hero coming to check on the ruckus. Good.


	3. Chapter 3

**Immortality is BS**

To make it clear: All rights to characters, setting, story and central concepts in this story remain the property of Wildbow, Worm's author, and the good people who created GURPS. This is just me playing in the sandbox. Worm can be found at parahumans dot wordpress dot com, and GURPS Fourth Edition can be bought from warehouse23 dot com.

* * *

 **Identity**

The motorcycle was a thing of beauty. It had the basic shape of a high-end racing bike but enhanced with what locals called tinker tech. Gadgeteer by any other name is still a friggin' annoyance. Take Raquel, for example. The bike had the same basic color scheme as its rider, midnight blue with silver highlights. The rider had power armor on, with a helmet that left the lower half of his face bare.

As the rider dismounted his steed he grabbed a halberd from the bike's body with the same movement. I recognized the hero from PHO. Armsmaster, some sort of efficiency specialist, which explained the move as well.

"Armsmaster," the girl whispered. She seemed to be close to hyperventilating.

"Calm down, we're the good guys, remember?" I said to her.

"Hero or villain?" Armsmaster asked, staying outside reach.

"What is it with you people and that question?" I wondered aloud. "We're standing here, in plain view, over an unconscious villain, checking if he's alive. What villain would do that?"

Armsmaster relaxed, although I saw a quick flash of annoyment on his face. He came closer. "What happened here?"

"I was on my way home and heard screams. Then there was a muted explosion and a roar of rage. Like the fool that I am, I ran here. I arrived just in time for Lung to pick me up, jump to the roof, and start looking for her," I said, stabbing my thumb towards the girl.

"I was on my patrol and came upon an ABB gathering. Soon Lung joined them. I could hear a part of his orders, something about killing kids. I decided I needed to act and attacked them with my power. Apparently he has enhanced senses after he transforms because he turned towards me as soon as my feet hit the gravel on the roof. Then he came and distraction gave me a chance to reach the fire escape. Then Lung was on the roof holding him, and I decided to help," the girl explained.

"Once on the roof I told her to run because Lung couldn't hurt me. Lung tried to prove otherwise and ripped my arm off. After it grew back I repeated my order and she complied. Once she was gone I managed to extricate myself from Lung's grip and use a standard Judo throw to fell him. He got up, I tried to dodge, failed, and he crushed my head under his foot. As soon as I got over that I taunted him some more. Before he could do much, though, he was tackled off the roof by one of Bitch's dogs," I continued.

"The Undersiders were here? Why didn't you try to stop them?" Armsmaster asked.

"We didn't realize who they were until shortly before they left and it was four of them plus three monster dogs versus us. Not the kind of odds we could overcome. Anyway, once Lung was tackled down to the street and two other dogs joined the fight it was pretty much over. Her bugs' venoms had slowed down Lung's regeneration and the dogs did, well, this to him. He wasn't getting up. Actually, I was afraid the dogs had killed him so I came down to check. Then you came to the scene."

"Hmm. That's all?"

"Pretty much. So what happens next?" I asked.

"I have your statements, so that's done. From what you told me you're a powerful regenerator, and your power has something to do with bugs," he said.

"Yes, I control bugs. I had them sting and inject venoms into Lung," the girl said.

"I best be careful with sedatives, then. Have you two considered joining the Protectorate? You'd get backup and resources."

I shrugged. "I think I'll want to consider the situation first. I don't know about my friend here."

She was silent for a moment. "I think I'll think about it, too."

Armsmaster nodded. "Good. Here's my card, call or send mail once you've decided. Now, to whom should I credit this takedown? Your names?"

I took his card and the girl took hers. I wondered briefly what to call myself. I had told the Undersiders my name but didn't think it would really matter.

"Call me The Immortal."

The girl hesitated. "I… haven't come up with a name yet," she admitted.

"Protectorate could help you with that too, and a costume for you," Armsmaster said. "When you decide on a name, just call me or send mail. We'll update it to the file."

He then sprayed Lung with containment foam and called for a pick-up.

"So can we go?" I asked him.

"Hmm? Yes. If you want to and have nothing else to add."

I nudged the girl and we started walking toward Boardwalk.

* * *

"So, first night out?" I asked.

"Yes. It was different than I thought."

"It always is. Scarier. More exhilarating. Exhausting. My parents practically lived on strong coffee during villain hunts."

"Your parents were capes?"

"Yeah. My dad flew and my mom controlled technology. Children of supers on my world are very likely to get powers but the powers themselves are rarely inherited. It seems to be almost random."

"On your world?"

"Yeah, I got transferred here from another couple of days ago. It's been both interesting and frustrating. Your capes and our supers are both alike and so different in so many ways. It's confusing. Take the secret identity thing for example. On our world, it's mostly a tradition supers do to spot each other more than any real need for a completely different identity, although there are those who do it for that reason too. Here it's more of a law unto itself. I find that strange since so many powers make finding out who's who so very easy. Yours, for example."

"I'll take your word for it. I couldn't imagine doing this without a secret identity. Going public would make my dad a target."

"I suppose that's part of it. Going after family or civilians, in general, isn't done much in my world. But then again, we've had superpowered people about seventy years against your thirty."

"Sounds like a big difference to me," she said. After a few moments, she asked hesitantly: "Are you really immortal?"

"I seem to be. I have on several occasions survived even the complete destruction of my body. I always come back. How does your bug control work?"

"Well, I control all the bugs that are within about a block's distance. Do you have any other powers?"

"Let me see. I'm immune to poisons, diseases, and psi effects, I don't need to eat, drink, sleep, or breathe, and it's possible I don't age. I feel very little pain, which I suppose is a blessing with my powers. I also seem to have gained photographic memory since the last time I took count of my powers. That's good," I checked my jeans, "since I have only one pocket left and that seems to have my wallet in it. I lost my phone on that roof. And the vast majority of my clothes." I drew my wallet out of the only intact pocket I had left and went to put some bills in it.

The girl glanced at it and gasped. "Where did you get those?"

"Hmm? I looted few of the unconscious goons before I checked on Lung. Pretty good haul, about five hundred dollars."

"But that's stealing!"

"Actually, it's not. Heroes are legally allowed to loot villains and their henchmen, except when the amounts are significant to the local or national economy. I checked. Something similar exists in my world. It's sort of a shortcut compared to how justice system reclaims assets from criminals. It also encourages heroes to take down villains."

"I… see. I didn't know that."

"Heh. I noticed most people don't know about that. It's an old law from before Protectorate and PRT that they probably missed when they set them up."

There was a moment of silence, then I got an idea. "Hey, what about Iridescent? As your cape name? Just add a layer of iridescent beetle carapace or something similar to your costume and it'd fit. You wouldn't lose the dark color that blends into darkness but it would look exceptional in the light."

She seemed to think about it. "I guess I could try it. I don't know if I can manage to layer it on the suit, but I think it's worth the effort. Thanks."

"No problem."

"So, about your powers. What does psi immunity mean?"

"Well, it protects me from mainly or purely mental effects like telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation, ESP… I think that in this world it might protect me from Masters and Thinkers, mainly. Haven't had an opportunity to try."

"That's insanely useful. Do you think it would protect you from Simurgh?"

"I don't know, and I don't see what I could even do against an Endbringer. It's not like I have Brute or Blaster powers, or even shields. Unless you count jumping in front of an incoming bullet."

"But wait, if you're immune to teleporting, how did you end up here?"

"Because psi powers aren't the only ones that can do it. We have our mad geniuses in our world, little like you have Tinkers. I'm sort-of-friends with one called Raquel. He specializes in travel tech, mostly teleporting and interdimensional travel and shit like that. He also thinks he's funny, so I wouldn't put it past him to kick me here as a prank."

"Ouch. And he's a friend?"

"I said sort-of-friend. He's not the only mental case in my circles. There's this one guy, Sammael, who enjoys killing me in creative ways…"

* * *

We talked the whole way to Boardwalk where we went our separate ways. I gave her my PHO nick so that we could get in touch later. It was nearly four when I finally got to Rachel's who wasn't too happy about me waking her up. Although when she saw that I was already undressed (har har) for her she got over it.

When we woke up in the morning she immediately started the third degree.

"So I suppose I'll be getting that interview now?"

I shrugged and sighed. "I suppose so. By now Armsmaster has probably stuck my face with the name The Immortal into some database. Might as well let you profit from this as well. It might be a good idea to wait for their announcement about Lung's capture first, though."

"The Immortal? Lung's capture"

"Well, that's what I am. Here's what happened…"

I told her what had happened with Lung and then we went shopping. I got myself some cheap clothes, identical sets of everything since I was probably doomed to go through them at an increased pace, a cheap cell for the same reason, and a bo staff.

Then it was time to go meet her cousins and their families. Apparently Sarah had bullied Carol into throwing a barbecue and we were all invited.

Somehow I ended up as the cook, probably Rachel's influence. No one complained, though.

We also hashed out my situation with Rachel and Carol. She was willing to try and set up some legal protections for me but basically it all boiled down to two choices, one of which I had already sabotaged. So it all boiled to one choice. Going public. I had no problem with that.

Then Sarah suggested that I might fit in with New Wave and Carol was summarily the only one voting no, although her husband Mark abstained. He was a bit withdrawn, and I recognized the symptoms of depression easily enough. I had seen it in my uncle after my cousin died.

While Sarah and Carol began to plan the great publicity event that was me joining I went to entertain the guys, kids, and Rachel.

"How come you're so good a cook if you don't eat?" Eric asked.

I nodded to Rachel and she explained. "He doesn't need to eat but he enjoys it. And since he doesn't need to eat healthily he eats tasty and has learned to cook that way. Trust me, anything greasy, salty, sweet or combinations thereof, if it's unhealthy, this guy can make it."

"Perhaps not everything but I do notice a rise in my popularity whenever I happen to cook for others."

"You do make a mean steak, Eric," Neil grumbled. He had already eaten five of them.

"Your burgers aren't bad either," Mark added.

"Thanks. So now that I'm joining, what are your powers?"

"Well, I guess most of us manipulate energy in some way. Except for our flying brick, who's all Brute," Crystal said, nodding towards Victoria.

"And Amy," Eric said, "but she's adopted, so we understand her lesser powers."

Amy threw a chicken bone at him. "Shut up, Eric, or next time you can suffer through your flu the normal way."

"Neil controls electromagnetism near him and can use that to form a shield around himself in addition to his obvious brute body. Mark throws around explosive balls of energy to which he himself is immune. Carol has the ability to create various simple weapons and martial shields out of burning 'hard' light, and she can turn into an invulnerable bouncing sphere of hard light. Sarah is your standard flyer with shooty beams and a forcefield, same for Crystal and Eric. Eric has stronger forcefields with the cost of his other two powers and Crystal is the reverse of that. Vicky can fly, hit and take a hit. She's almost invulnerable. Like Crystal said, a flying brick. Then again, that's pretty much what Alexandria is as well. Oh, and she has that aura that strikes fear in the hearts of her enemies and makes everyone else adore her. Well, at least look on her more favorably. Last and best we have Amy who heals whatever ails you. Except for brains," Rachel listed.

Amy beamed at Rachel. "That's right, and don't you forget it! Although with your powerset you won't be needing my services. Would you mind if I took a look?" she asked.

I shrugged. "Go ahead." I waited until she was touching me before stabbing a steak knife into my thigh.

"Oh wow," she said somewhat dreamily. "You certainly are different. Look at those cells replicating!"

"Amy, dear, we can't see it. Although it is sort of interesting to see a steak knife embedded in someone without hearing at least whimpers of pain," Sarah said as she came back out. "I hope you left some food for us too."

I pulled the knife out and Amy released me once I was fully healed.

"That was amazing. I could watch that all day and not get bored. His body is crazy interesting," she gushed.

I was little taken aback. Trust a healer to be excited about the one guy she'd never need to heal. Her power was a little odd, though. I had never come across a brain limit before. Then again, some of the powers in this world were really strange.

"Hey, you said last time that you're immune to psi powers. I want to see if Vicky's aura affects you," Eric said.

I shrugged again. "Sure. How do we test that?"

"Come further away from the others and we'll try it," Vicky said and walked to the other side of the yard.

I did so, feeling little foolish. "Now what?"

"You mean you don't feel that?" Vicky said, her brow furrowed. She seemed to concentrate more. I still didn't feel anything and checked if the others noticed anything. I saw the others reacting with various levels. Carol and Mark seemed least affected, Amy the most. I found that rather odd since she had spent her whole life with Vicky.

"I think you can stop now. The others seem to be little in awe of your display."

"Damn. I tried harder than ever. Did you really not feel anything?"

"Nope. How do you deal with your aura affecting the others, though? Wouldn't that be a little distracting on the field?"

"Nah, they're immune," Vicky said, dismissing the whole thing with a flick of her wrist.

I hesitated but decided to come out with it since he was going to be a part of the team. "No, they're not. Even Mark and Carol seemed to feel it a little at the end there. Amy almost fell to her knees. Didn't you see that?"

"What? No, I didn't look at them, I was concentrating on you. And don't be ridiculous, of course they're immune, especially Amy."

There was a moment of silence soon broken by Sarah.

"No, dear. I'm pretty sure none of us are immune. I definitely felt it even before you ramped it up."

Vicky looked pleadingly at Amy. "Amy?"

Amy twitched and suddenly found her toes extremely interesting. She mumbled something.

They were sisters, though, so Vicky could read Amy like a book. With a horrified scream, she flew off.

"Great," I muttered. "Way to kill a party, Eric."

If looks could kill Carol's stare would have murdered me. Or would have made a valiant effort at it. I and Rachel were politely ushered out while the two families began to discuss things. The rest of the day was sort of gray and depressing for us.


	4. Chapter 4

**Immortality is BS**

To make it clear: All rights to characters, setting, story and central concepts in this story remain the property of Wildbow, Worm's author, and the good people who created GURPS. This is just me playing in the sandbox. Worm can be found at parahumans dot wordpress dot com, and GURPS Fourth Edition can be bought from warehouse23 dot com.

* * *

 **Elseworld**

Raquel woke up with a start as his doorbell rang. He wondered who the heck would visit him unannounced before midday. Such things happened, well, never. Everyone knew that he was a night owl who usually slept way past midday.

He climbed out of bed just as his doorbell rang again. Impatient, whoever it was. Raquel walked through his two-bedroom condo, made sure he was dressed (he was - boxers and T-shirt was plenty enough) and opened the door.

"Oh, hi, Mr. and Mrs. Sloane. What brings you here?"

"Where is Eric?" were the first words out of Mrs. Sloane's mouth.

"What? How should I know?"

"Sammael told us that you three were out drinking or something, he wasn't too specific, and that you were talking most of the time about some special pistol."

Raquel thought back. Well, tried to. "Sorry, not ringing any bells. Not surprising as I may have forgotten the last couple of days. What is the date?"

The question wasn't actually that rare for him. As a travel gadgeteer who semiregularly visited other worlds, dimensions and times dates were sort of difficult for him.

"April 12th, 2011," Mr. Sloane said.

"Huh. So yeah, I'm probably missing enough time that I have no idea what I might have done to Eric. Let me check that pistol," Raquel said and walked to his computer.

"Alice, give me the inventory. X-11 type B pistol," he said to his computer AI.

"That pistol was fried and recycled as per your standing orders. It was activated several times along the path shown on the map on the screen now, and finally overloaded at the location indicated by the marker," Alice said.

Raquel eyed the map and the date. "Yep, it's quite possible or even likely that I might have shot Eric with that pistol."

"So where is he?" Mrs. Sloane asked.

"Beats me. I'll have to check the diagnostic data. Gonna take a while, and even longer to figure out a way to get him back. That pistol was wicked. I designed it to punch through dimensionally locked realities. Apparently it couldn't quite handle the power throughput required for that particular shunt," Raquel said scratching his stubble.

"Give me a few days, a week tops, to go through the data and I'll have a better idea where he ended up. Getting him back might take longer as the reality he's in has to be pretty well protected," he continued.

Mrs. Sloane looked murderous but Raquel didn't notice. Apparently he had forgotten his visitors and slumped down into his office chair, going through the arcane screens of text that probably was the diagnostic log.

"Come on, he's zoned out," Mr. Sloane said and gently turned Mrs. Sloane around towards the still open door. "Let him work. Nothing we can do right now. And it's not like Eric's going to die."

The concerned parents left the condo, Mrs. Sloane glancing back. They left the door open.

* * *

 **Earlier**

"Snorting Pig? How the heck do you keep finding these hellholes, Raq?" Sammael asked. He was dressed in cargo pants and a screaming yellow/red Hawaiian shirt replica. It was open on the front, giving everyone a good look at his sculpted body.

"I'm a travel gadgeteer, dumb ass. Ending up in strange places is sort of my shtick," Raquel replied. He was dressed pretty much like he always was when not home, in business casual black. It didn't even fit too well, sleeves and pant legs being too short for the tall and lanky man. It also conflicted with his crow's nest and stubbly cheeks.

Eric looked at the seedy bar with something resembling resignation. "You're going to drag us there no matter what, aren't you?" His chosen look was similar to Sammael's, except that he had a much more sensible T-shirt with a generic band logo. He had no idea who they were or what kind of music they made.

"Yep," Raquel said, popping the P and heading inside.

Eric shook his head and headed inside after Raquel. Sammael followed muttering something unsavory under his breath.

The bar was as seedy inside as it was outside, as was its clientele. They looked like folks doing heavy manual labor during the day, or like low-status career criminals. In some cases both. Eric had to wonder how the cops didn't raid this place on a daily basis. Perhaps they did.

The three of them stood out like a sore thumb. They usually did on these excursions. Eric really didn't know how he got dragged to go along. Probably because he didn't have anything better to do.

Sammael wandered to order something horrendously vile and alcohol-based, Raq looked for a place to sit and Eric checked that they weren't being targeted by the clientele. Wouldn't be the first time they were stabbed, shot at or otherwise waylaid mere minutes - or seconds - after going into one of these places. It was a good thing none of them really minded such things.

Eric ruminated on that for a moment as Raq waved them over to a booth that had seen better days. They were a strange bunch. He himself was immortal, Sammael was very nearly invulnerable, and Raq was a gadgeteer with... something. Eric didn't actually know how Raq survived their excursions. He seemed always come through without injuries, though.

The seediness and the clientele didn't apparently mean much. They drank, listened Raq rant about his newest invention - some sort of pistol that made its target jump realities or something - and watched as he drank something foul-smelling from a flask when the bartender's back was turned. Raq became more and more belligerent as the night progressed.

"You know what this is? This is the alcohol of champions, this is! It's the vilest stuff I've ever drunk, and that's saying something!" Raq shouted.

The bartender didn't miss his flask this time. "OUT!" he shouted and they obeyed. Sammael had to help Raq walk.

"You know what, you pansies? I bet you understand the greatness of X-11 better if I show it!" Raq yelled and shot a dumpster. It promptly vanished. "See! It works!"

Raq kept shooting random items until they reached Chinatown and even through it he kept singing the weapon's praises. They took a shortcut on Raquel's muttered advice: "Much faster that way, you know." Eric went first, then Sammael supporting Raq.

"You now what? I'll show you this works real well," Raquel stammered to Sammael. Before Sammael could do anything Raq had already shot Eric. The pistol began to smell really acrid and an occasional spark came from it. "Oh poo. That sucks," Raquel said and fell unconscious.

Eric heard screams coming from ahead and rushed over, seeing a woman in her late twenties being accosted by gang members.


End file.
